1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically, methods, apparatus, systems, and products for executing an overall quantity of data processing within an overall processing period.
2. Description of Related Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely complicated devices. Today's computers are much more sophisticated than early systems such as the EDVAC. The most basic requirements levied upon computer systems, however, remain little changed. A computer system's job is to access, manipulate, and store information. Computer system designers are constantly striving to improve the way in which a computer system can deal with information.
A computer system typically operates according to computer program instructions in computer programs. The computer program instructions are stored in computer memory and executed one-by-one on one or more computer processors. Multiple computer programs organized in separate thread of execution can run on the same computer at the same time, by sharing a processor in time slices, by running on multiple processors, or both. Computer processors are fast, executing millions of computer program instructions per second. No matter how fast a processor is, though, executing a computer program or a thread of execution takes time, and sometimes priorities of execution can conflict. A system program, for example, may take so much time to run that it may interfere with the perceived operation of a user's application.